About

$4,022

pledged of $2,500 goal

55

backers

Please know that the only thing which exceeds the need we perceive out there is our desire to help. Your support will be used directly for art supplies for our cart, opportunity for our clients, and jobs for our outreach workers. Funds raised in excess of our initial goal will only endow us to reach out further & farther, with great gratitude... Nic Bettauer, MFA MSW & Painted Brain

Our Gray Matter is Colorful

The Painted Brain https://www.facebook.com/PaintedBrainLA/?fref=ts creates lasting community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through arts, advocacy and enterprise. We are a non-profit group of mental health professionals and consumers using multi-media to bring together and give voice to individuals fighting for their own and others’ well-being.

With the homeless population of Los Angeles at crisis proportions -- some of this caused by mental illness, and much of this causing mental illness -- we at Painted Brain are uniquely knowledgeable and experienced to offer a humane and creative street-based art intervention, fostering meaningful communication and connection with those who are marginalized, disenfranchised and isolated. Reducing stress and harm, fostering trust and respite, addressing trauma along with unwanted mental and physical experiences, providing purposeful expression and activity within a safe, caring, and consistent relationship, facilitating linkage to further help, and always sharing hope -- these are our goals with the Outsider Art Cart's outreach.

Will art help people living on the streets? Yes indeed. Is it enough? Not at all, but art is a conduit to communication, connection, and community. Having something to show and say for oneself is empowering. Having someone actively listen to and see you is life-affirming. We want to share others' stories, because they matter. We want to help others take back control of their narrative, because this matters. We want to partake in perspectives, foster dignity and esteem, create and find meaning together.

Facing a blank page is a courageous act. One must draw the first line, write the first note, believe in oneself and the audience. But, before even that, one must first be able to imagine such possibility. This is the optimism and opportunity we hope to offer... the chance to be a part of something beautiful on the way back to home.

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Risks and challenges

The Painted Brain has a strong track record in creating a welcoming community, safe environment, and rewarding experience for individuals living with mental health challenges. Over the past ten years, we've made a vibrant and healthy impact through our website and social media, at our home headquarters in Los Angeles, and throughout Southern California in psychiatric hospitals, homeless youth drop-in centers, group home and transitional housing programs, mental health treatment facilities, substance abuse and recovery treatment centers, shelters and the jail system, high schools, college and graduate schools.

We anticipate the following risks in our next (ad)venture:

Street outreach by its nature is unpredictable. There will be times, places, and people on the street whom are not safe for and which are not conducive to our Outsider Art Cart intervention. We are mindful of this. We won't push. We don't assume. We assess, then address. There will be other times where the interest met and the need expressed will be beyond the scope of our service. We will always do what we can.

We are confident in the ability to take ourselves out of physical threat and work through psychological dangers, both in others (PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety, depression) and in ourselves (burn out, triggering, compassion fatigue). These risks and safety issues will be met via strict adherence to team security protocols. We at Painted Brain are respectful and supportive of how people are doing and feeling in the moment. We're a patient, empathetic, non-judgmental group -- grateful for the opportunity to lend a hand, give a leg up, offer a good eye and ear. At Painted Brain ( where gray matter is colorful :) we've nothing if not guts and heart.

We won't promise more than we have to offer. This said, we hope to have a lot to offer... because we are offering of ourselves.